Improving English Consonants Pronunciation of Undergraduate Students in Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna Lampang

บทคัดย่อ

           The purposes of the research were to: 1) study the phonetics features of English consonants as pronounced by undergraduate students in Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna Lampang, 2) improve English consonants pronunciation skill, and 3) compare the students’ learning achievement by contrasting the participants’ pre-test and post-test score. The target group was twenty-four accounting students. Data were analyzed by percentage, average, and t-test. The research instruments were English pronunciation test, sets of pronunciation activities, and places and manners of articulation diagram. The results of the study were the followings:

          1. The phonetic features of English consonants pronunciation problem with the percentages of 100.00 were the fricatives ([v], [θ], [ð], [z], [ʃ], [ʒ]), affricates ([tʃ], and [dʒ]), stop (plosive) ([g]), lateral ([l]), and approximant ([r]). The consonants with less pronunciation problem were [f)], [s], and [t] with the percentage of 80, 50, and 25 respectively.

          2. After the improving process of using sets of pronunciation activities and places and manners of articulations diagrams, the participants could pronounce English consonants correctly with the average percentage of 77.56, increased by 34.13 per cent.

          3. By comparing the participants’ learning achievement, it was found that there was a significant difference between pre-test and post-test score with a mean significant gain score of +14.59. Participants were found to be able to pronounce English consonants correctly after participating in the activity (t (46) = 2.013, p<.05).